Thursday, 18 October 2012

Turkey looks to India for more trade, flights


Turkey is keen to not only boost bilateral trade with India, its national carrier also wants permission to operate more flights to various destinations here, a senior Turkish Government official said here late on Wednesday.
Speaking to newspersons, Turkish Ambassador Burak Akcapar said although the two countries had initiated a joint study to promote trade in February 2011, it needs to be signed and negotiations started to give a further boost to trade.
“We believe that with the current set-up, trade will not be able to flourish more than what it is. This year, there is already a little bit of slowdown. Therefore, we need to step up in formulating a new framework that promotes two-way trade exchanges.
At present, the Turkish market is more liberalised than India. This creates a situation in which out of the $7-billion Turkey-India trade, only $756 million is Turkey’s exports to India, the Envoy said.
The Ambassador said a number of issues were holding back trade volumes from growing. “There is a limit on how many marbles and precious stones can be exported to India. We could also export more fresh fruits that would help bring down prices in India. There is also an issue with Turkey’s exports of hazelnuts. The list is very long,” he said.
More flights
The Envoy felt that allowing Turkish Airlines to operate more flights to India would also help the country receive more foreign tourists.
At the moment, Turkish Airlines operates daily flights from Mumbai and Delhi and is keen to operate to six cities, including Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Amritsar and Kolkata.

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